Remembrance of the Daleks is the first serial of the 25th season of the British science fiction television series Doctor Who. The serial was first broadcast in four weekly episodes from 5 to 26 October 1988. It was written by Ben Aaronovitch and directed by Andrew Morgan. The serial contains many references to the history of the show, featuring settings from the first Doctor Who episode, An Unearthly Child, such as Coal Hill School and the junkyard at 76 Totter's Lane.

In the serial, alien time traveller the Doctor and his companion Ace travel back to 1963 to retrieve the Hand of Omega, a powerful device created by the Time Lords, and keep it from the Daleks. The serial is the final appearance of the Daleks in the original run and the only occasion in which the Seventh Doctor encountered them on television.

In reader polls conducted by Doctor Who Magazine from 1998 onwards, Remembrance of the Daleks has consistently been voted as one of the greatest Doctor Who stories. It is set in the same time and place as the programme's first episode, "An Unearthly Child", where Coal Hill School employed original companions Ian and Barbara and the Doctor's granddaughter Susan was enrolled. It originally read "L.M.", though that was changeable in production. This, along with the Doctor's hints that he was present at the creation of the Hand of Omega, was part of the so-called "Cartmel Masterplan" by script editor Andrew Cartmel to restore some of the mystery to the Doctor's origins. However, as the programme ceased production in 1989, the intended revelations never came to pass. The original script also had the Doctor blowing up a Dalek with the anti-tank missile in episode two, but McCoy felt this was out of character and suggested Ace should do it instead. Ian Ogilvy was approached for the role of Gilmore, but did not accept;

Remembrance of the Daleks was the first story in which Ace was a regular companion, Cartmel worked with Aldred to make Ace different from most companions: less of a "screamer" and more tomboyish. Aldred did many of her own stunts, bonding with the new stunt coordinator, Tip Tipping. She found the experience "terrifying" at first. Filming took place in April 1988. The junkyard gate was part of ITV's storage facility, and the pyrotechnics not only destroyed it for the effect of the Special Weapons Dalek blowing it up, but also smashed windows in the nearby building.

The battle between Dalek factions has been likened to racism, which is apparent in the 1960s setting as Ace sees a sign that says "No Coloureds". DVD Talk's J. Doyle Wallis, reviewing the original DVD release, gave the story three and a half out of five stars, calling it "a good ... adventure" and noting the shift in the Doctor's personality. Alasdair Wilkins of io9 called Remembrance "by a pretty wide margin the best anniversary special the show has ever done", praising the return to the 1960s and the various continuity references.

Patrick Mulkern of Radio Times praised the serial for "attempting to honour the programme's roots, even if, sadly, the effect is more of the present clomping all over the past", and questioned how the Doctor could have known about the Daleks in 1963 if he did not meet them until he left. He was also critical of the supporting characters and McCoy and Ace; he felt McCoy "struggles to convey gravitas" in the changes that had been made to his character, and while Aldred brought "gusto", Ace was "a peculiarly safe, middle-class rendering of a streetwise kid". Mulkern wrote that the action scenes were handled well, but some of the Daleks looked "fragile" and destroying Skaro was double genocide. John Sinnot, reviewing the second DVD release on DVD Talk, gave the serial three and a half out of five stars. He praised the action, references, and the Doctor's active involvement in the plot, but criticised the music and also questioned how the Doctor would have been able to plant the Hand of Omega for the Daleks. Sinnot also felt the Daleks acted "stupid" in some scenes, and wrote that the relationship between Ace and Mike was "clumsy and awkward". In 2010, Charlie Jane Anders of io9 listed the cliffhanger to the first episode – in which the Dalek levitates up the stairs – as one of the greatest cliffhangers in the history of Doctor Who. However, Anders felt that the execution was "pants, with Sylvester McCoy pulling some dreadful faces". In 2013, Den of Geeks Andrew Blair selected Remembrance of the Daleks as one of the ten Doctor Who stories that would make great musicals.

In the Doctor Who Magazine 1988 season poll, Remembrance of the Daleks was voted as the best story of season twenty-five with 64% of the vote, 46% ahead of The Greatest Show in the Galaxy. Ten years later, the magazine conducted a poll of readers to find the most popular Doctor Who stories of all time for the programme's 35th anniversary; Remembrance of the Daleks was voted 6th. Remembrance of the Daleks placed 14th in the magazine's 2009 "Mighty 200" reader survey, which ranked the 200 Doctor Who stories made up to that point. In the magazine's 50th anniversary poll, released in 2014, it placed 10th. In 2023, the story finished in 9th position in the magazine's 60th anniversary poll.

The 2021 Channel 4 drama It's a Sin contains a mocked-up scene of a fictional Doctor Who serial involving a Dalek attack in tribute to the actor Dursley McLinden, who appeared in Remembrance of the Daleks and whose life and early death from AIDS partially inspired the drama's main character played by Olly Alexander.

Commercial releases

In print

Ben Aaronovitch's novelisation was published by Target Books in June 1990. Its use of a "darker Doctor and more modern approach" influenced the Virgin New Adventures, a series of more adult original novels that continued the Doctor Who story after the series was cancelled. The ancient Gallifreyan figure known as "The Other" first appears here, who had been instrumental to the Cartmel Masterplan, and whose storyline continued into the New Adventures.

Home media

Remembrance of the Daleks was released on VHS with The Chase in September 1993 as a special Dalek tin set titled The Daleks: Limited Edition Boxed Set. It was re-released in 2001 as part of The Davros Collection, which was a limited-edition box set, exclusive to UK retailer WH Smith.

The serial was released on DVD in the United Kingdom on 26 February 2001, remastered by the Doctor Who Restoration Team. The original Region 2 DVD release has some video effects missing from episode 1 and the start of episode 2. This was an unforeseen consequence of the Restoration Team using earlier edits of these episodes to minimise generational quality loss, made before certain effects were added. The problem was corrected with subsequent DVD releases, including Region 1. This DVD also was not able to include two songs by The Beatles, "Do You Want to Know a Secret" and "A Taste of Honey", due to copyright; the former was replaced by the Billy J. Kramer and the Dakotas' version, while the latter was replaced with "generic production music". A remastered version of this story was released on Region 2 in November 2007, as part of The Complete Davros Collection and as a two-disc standalone release (including the 'Davros Connections' documentary from the boxset) on 20 July 2009. It includes the effects that were mistakenly left out and songs by The Beatles that weren't clearable for the original release but subsequently fell under a blanket music licensing agreement for the UK. There is also a newly remastered stereo and 5.1 surround sound mix. In the original Davros Boxset release version, there were two total mutes of the 5.1 soundtrack during episode one. 2entertain fixed the master within a few days of release and faulty copies could be exchanged for fixed ones via mail-in. The standalone version of the release uses the fixed version. The two-disc Special Edition was delayed due to clearance issues and was held off until it was released in the United States and Canada on 2 March 2010.

This serial was also released as part of the Doctor Who DVD Files in issue 29 on 10 February 2010, the first of the classic series to be released on the partwork. This marks the fourth different separate release of the serial on DVD.

In 2013, (in the USA and Australia) it was released on DVD for another time as part of the "Doctor Who: The Doctors Revisited 5–8" box set, alongside Earthshock, Vengeance on Varos, and the TV movie.

In 2017, a German-language audiobook version was released under the title Die Hand des Omega, read by Michael Schwarzmaier, the actor who dubbed the voice of the 7th doctor in the television series.

Notes

References

  • Script to Screen: Remembrance of the Daleks, by Jon Preddle (Time Space Visualiser issue 39, May 1994)

Target novelisation

  • On Target – Remembrance of the Daleks